At first glance, Byron Bay Brewery's new product looks like an ordinary bottle of beer.

It has the right shape, a paper label and crown seal cap but there is one fundamental difference - it is made from plastic rather than glass.

The brewery has teamed up with Visy to launch its premium ale beer, which is currently available in glass, in a 375ml recyclable PET bottle as well.

YOUR SAY: Would you be happy to drink beer from a plastic bottle? Did you try it in the late '90s? What was it like?

Visy says that PET technology has advanced since beer in plastic bottles was first seen on Australian shelves, giving it a longer shelf life and improved taste.

CUB and Lion Nathan were early adopters of plastic beer bottles, offering Carlton Cold and Hahn Ice, respectively, in this format for a short time in the late 1990s.

This was primarily for events such as music festivals.

This new incarnation will be pitched to a similar audience as well as pubs and clubs.

Byron Bay Brewery co-founder Glenn Cary said safety was the primary motivator behind the move.

"Late last year with the spate of glassings I felt I needed to start developing an alternative to glass," he said.

"I knew other companies had tried and failed and that Visy had made some innovations [since then].

"That [old] technology was more suited to soft-drink rather than beer packaging. The current packaging is multi-layered so it allows us to pasteurise the bottle with the beer in it, which stops it from oxidising the beer and makes it more stable."

The beer has a shelf life of six months, a few months shy of the nine to 10 months of beer in a glass bottle.

Cary said the brewery opted for a plastic bottle rather than a can for aesthetic reasons. Cans were not as popular as bottles, he said.

Cary said Jupiters Casino on the Gold Coast, and the Coogee Bay Hotel and the Ivy in Sydney had already signed up to stock the beer.

These Sydney premises are affected by recent legislation that forces venues that have recorded more than 12 assaults a year to use plastic drinkware after midnight.

V Australia will also make it available on international flights.

"People are surprised at how good the beer tastes," he said. "They didn't realise initially that they were drinking out of a plastic bottle. Most people look at it knowing we have problems in society and here is one way of offering a solution."